


Whisper to a Scream

by Jennifer-Oksana (JenniferOksana)



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Cylons, Episode: s02e06 Home (part 1), Gen, Humanity, Missing Scene, Tension, Threats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 11:22:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6152095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenniferOksana/pseuds/Jennifer-Oksana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I don't think she's human.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whisper to a Scream

It's like she's neither one of them nor one of us. I don't think she's human, but I know she's not a Cylon. Instead she looks at me, quietly, and everything she says is cold.

"Tell me why you're here, Sharon," their president says to me. I watch her, and her gaze pins me to the bars.

"Because I love him," I say. "And because I'm carrying his child."

Has she ever loved anyone? Has she ever loved anyone who loves her back? The half-smile on her face is strange and bitter, as though she's heard it all and feels a little bad for me, trying such an old line on someone who knows all the crap and won't be led down the garden path.

"Oh, I see," she says in a sharpish voice that doesn't come above a pleasant conversational tone. _Not human, not human_ , my gut chants, but I know she's not one of us. "You're not here because you mean us any harm or because you're a programmed enemy of humanity. You're here because you had an affair with one of our Raptor pilots."

I understand why nobody seems very close to President Roslin. Nobody can stand that much truth aimed at them like a weapon, twisted and turned until only the ugliness of it remains. In her hands, love is something that men say as they're silhouetted in the door as they leave. That mothers say on their deathbeds after twenty years of old wars of disapproval, seeking absolution rather than reconciliation.

"Listen to me," I say, frustrated. I'm trying to tell her something important, but she's so far away. Thinking six steps ahead, and she knows it all and she's always right but she can't even believe me because it doesn't matter if I mean it or not. That isn't part of her plan.

"I'm listening to you," she answers, looking through me. "That's my mistake. I'm listening to a Cylon."

If I could, I'd slap her until she listened. If I touched her, she'd break my wrist. Would smile at me while I held my broken wrist and lecture me on why Cylons do not touch presidents and very calmly explain that it would be her pleasure to evacuate me into space now. Nobody would say a word.

She's daring me to do something. Lose my temper. Lose my life. Just plain lose.

"I am here," I say, trying to match the vicious, radioactive scorn in her voice, "Because I **chose** to come here. And I know you don't believe me."

She's not human. I know she's not human. It hits me like a sharp shock to the skull. She's something else entirely, and if the scriptures I'm remembering are right, things are only going to get worse for the cold thing who stands in front of me, pretending to be more human than me.

"But hear this," I warn her. "Even if you find the tomb...even if you find the map...even if you find Earth...the price you pay will be too high."

Or maybe she is human. The demeanor stays ice, but the words are tossed off closer to hisses, too precise, too aspirated. The president is very close to wringing my neck with her bare hands.

"I'm not interested in your prophecies," she says, conveniently ignoring there's only one and she's got a leading role in what's to come. "I know that there is a Cylon force on Kobol. I know it's dangerous, and I have little doubt that you are communicating everything I say even as we speak."

She doesn't get it. She doesn't want to get it. Maybe she doesn't know, but how can't she know? How can't she understand that she is not like anyone else from the way they all react to her? I watched Kara Thrace, pain in her eyes, watched her look at me with this woman's command ringing in the air, with Helo pleading for my life.

Watched her bow her head and give this woman her arrow. Without a word.

The price President Roslin pays will be too high for her. Nobody gets to walk her road and come to anything but the worst grief. And nobody but her can walk it, period. She has to travel alone through the shadowlands, and what emerges will not be a woman born.

"It doesn't work like that," I say, addressing the least of her lies. "I'm not wired in!"

"Sharon," she says in that voice of hers, the one that tells me that I will obey or I will be destroyed. "It's simple. What I need to know -- and what might keep you alive -- is exactly how to find the Tomb of Athena."

I want to scream at her that she already knows. Stupid bitch, she already knows.

"Get me a map," I say. "And I will do my best to lead you to the tomb."

The air between us is a vortex of negatively charged ions crackling in search of anything positive or even neutral.

"You'll do better than your best," and I know now that she does know, but she can't quite pull it up. That the enormity of what's in her has her so scared that all she has is the relief of being empty. "I want to know where it is, and you either know or you don't."

Not that simple. Never that simple. I hate her. She has to know it's not that simple. The pressure of being in my head, knowing who I am, is tearing me apart. I love Helo. I love our baby. I love my family. I believe in my God. I do not love humans. But I love my baby enough to overcome how much I want to punch this hateful, arrogant woman with as much warmth as the tomb in her mouth.

"We all know about the tomb," I say. _Including and especially you,_ I think. "I can show you the path. I don't know how long the path is, or where the path leads to, but I can tell you you're going to have to move very, very quickly."

Then something happens. For a moment, something like an emotion crosses her face.

"Five months," she breathes out, ragged and soft.

"She finally speaks something other than lies and threats," I drawl. "Do you know where it is?"

Something like a smile flits across her face. "I will," she says, chilling my blood as the smile develops. "You seem to know so much prophecy, Sharon. Your god seems to do a poor job of giving cues when you're in part of the story."

I shiver. God, she's scary. I don't even know if she knows she's saying this to me. Or if this is her burden, this madness that none of them really see, or know enough about to push it away as fast as they can.

"At least my God doesn't punish me for what I am," I manage to say. "Or do you think the madness is a fringe benefit?"

She blinks, shakes her head, seems to have misheard me. "If you are lying to me, Sharon, I will put you out of the airlock," she says, suddenly the same cold creature of thirty seconds ago. The gods' evil under control again. "And for good measure, I will make sure that Lieutenant Agathon is with you. I don't need any Cylon infiltration of my fleet."

Not with her at the head of it. I try hard not to start crying. Or to be afraid.

But I am afraid. Even if I do what she says, this woman is capable of killing my man and my baby.

For the good of humanity. That's what she'll say, anyway.

"I'll do what you say," I say, abjectly terrified.

"I know you will," she answers, smiling. "Good hunting, Sharon."

And then she turns and walks away, and I sit down hard on my bunk and try not to scream or cry.

I manage the not-screaming.

The crying? Well, that's a little harder.


End file.
